Helping Students Cope Is Part of Summer Strategy

As Kevin Burel chats with his friends and instructors here in an
oak-paneled dining hall, the bubbly, dark-haired, 16-year-old is the
picture of an average teenager.

But he credits the Duke University Talent Identification Program
with changing his life--more specifically, giving him the confidence
and self-esteem to make friends and pursue his ambitions. This fall, he
will become junior-class president at Dunwiddie High School in
Doraville, Ga., and an intern for the city government in Decatur, Ga.
Eventually, he wants to become a lawyer or politician.

Vicki B. Stocking, TIP's director of research, has spent eight years
studying the highly gifted students who take part in Duke's summer
programs. And she's concluded that Burel is pretty typical of the
gifted teenager--far from the stereotype of a social outsider.

From the Southern-literature seminar to physics class, the TIP
students on the Duke campus look much like the rest of the country's
adolescents this summer. Halter tops, frosty-blue fingernail polish,
baggy jeans, and baseball caps flipped backwards are as trendy here as
anywhere.

But the students' intellects set them apart--and, for some of them,
that can cause problems at a crucial and vulnerable age.

"Sometimes, being really bright makes them too unique," Stocking
says. "We know that some of them are isolated, some of them are
rejected by peers."

Educators have long agreed that gifted students' talents should be
carefully nurtured. Back in 1919, psychologist Lewis M. Terman declared
that "the future welfare of the country hinges in no small degree upon
the right education of superior children."

Still, researchers say, such students rarely receive enough
challenges or emotional nurturing in school. In fact, gifted students
often are viewed as being more capable of overcoming adversity than
their peers, a perception that Stocking and others are trying to
dispel.

Stocking has surveyed the members of each class at Duke for the
eight years she's been there--in some cases conducting personal
interviews--and she has been surprised by some of the results.

For instance, girls do just as well in the mathematics courses as
their male counterparts, and girls are showing an increasing interest
in the math and science fields. At the same time, the surveys show,
gifted students' interests range far beyond academics.

But Stocking also notes that gifted students do not lead "charmed
lives."

"A number of these kids--way more than expected--have suffered
extremely stressful situations," she says. The problem is, sometimes
they are expected to be able to cope merely because they are such good
students.

As a result, TIP staff members at Duke hold frequent seminars on
topics such as stress management to help students deal with the intense
pressure to succeed that can come from overzealous parents and
teachers, and sometimes themselves.

For Burel, the insight that, "yes, there are people just like me,"
has been the overriding lesson from four summers at Duke.

And that's just what Stocking and the other coordinators want.

"We feel it's our duty to give them skills that they can take with
them back to regular school," Stocking says.

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